The drive

Whats up world/family/friends?

After my dad was done with his job that he was with for 25 years, he began to work in the flower shop next door to our house. This was the same flower shop my grandfather owned for years… Anyway, my dad started to work for Bob who had owned the shop for 30 plus years after my grandfather owned it. I would to work in the shop on holidays and deliver flowers for BoB. I always helped when I could. I would shovel the sidewalks when it snowed. In flower shop people would order flowers for funerals and things as such. Some would have to be delivered on Sundays when the shop would be closed. So I would go with my dad to bring them and sometimes we had to set them up.

Bob’s father had passed away in January of 2000 and the flowers for the funeral needed to be brought about an hour away from where we lived next to the shop. It happened to be a Sunday and of course I took the ride with my dad. We would talk about different things, ya know father son talk. We arrived at the funeral home and dropped off the flowers. We both knew Bob’s father so of course we felt for his family just like anyone else would.

My dad and I got back in the van and started to drive home. As I sit here on my couch writing this post, I specifically remember what part of the road we were on and what time it was as I said to my dad randomly. “Dad, if you were to pass away, I know exactly what mom would want me to do” but if mom passed away, I would have no clue what you would want me to do. We both were quiet for a bit thinking of what I just said. It upset me to think about that happening. A kid having a parent die! No that can’t happen! My dad responded and said to me. “I don’t even know what I would want you to do” but I know your mom would know…..

Well as you know by now from my previous blog post my mother passed away 20 days after that ride home on February 17 2000. I couldn’t believe just 3 weeks before that we had talked about not knowing what to do if either of my parents passed away, and now I say to myself “what do I do”? Of course when you lose someone close to you like this you can’t believe it’s real. You think he or she will just wake up. You are numb, you are in denial, you are angry, sad, pissed off. Your anxiety is through the roof. You can’t sleep. You cry so much your face hurts. If you are reading this you get my point.

When it’s all over, wake, mass/chapel eulogy and bypass (gotta eat right?)reality hits, you are back to life REAL LIFE with just my dad, sister and me. I ask myself “What do I do”? I couldn’t ask my dad since he was literally lost without my mom and my sister was only 15 and now going to grow up without a mom. I ask myself “what do I do”? Honestly folks I never did find that answer. I just did what I felt my mom would have done. It’s as if she was and is with me the whole time. People always would say “Tom, I don’t know how you do it. And I would say ” I just do” It’s funny now that I think of it and just wrote it, I have had the answer the whole time ( I just do/did what I felt my mom would have done)

So through all the grief and hurt that I had been going through at that time there were good grieving’s. Knowing that all this time I have mostly done things the way I felt my mom would have done them. I guess what I am saying is, Take one moment, not day at a time and realize that there truly are “good grieving’s”

Cheers,

Tom

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4 Replies to “The drive”

People are terrified of the unknown. When people say to you, “I don’t know how you do it–or “I could never do what you do”, it’s from a place of uncertainty and fear. They looked at you–a mere teenager–and saw a situation most people fear–teenager or not–losing a parent.
Seeing your significant loss caused them to put themselves in your shoes and, in those shoes of grief and loss, they felt hopeless and scared.
Difference between them and you was that they had a choice to imagine what life was life in your shoes. You had to live it. You had no choice.
So when a huge fear simply becomes your day-to-day reality, you really no longer have a choice; you just do it.
I guess you could curl up in a ball and refuse to get out of bed or kill yourself or something-those are choices too. But most of us don’t. We simply live our lives because we have to; because, although life as we knew it may have ended–life–real life goes on.
Our “normal” worlds stop; the world, however, does not stop for us.
Keep writing, Tom. Every word you share about your mom and Katie will not only bring you closer to them in your hearts and minds, but those of others as well.

Seeing you and Kim experience these losses first hand I learned years ago that you just have to accept whatever happens in life to keep going, to keep functioning, to keep living. The most painful thing is to lose a loved one; most folks are so distraught in dealing with the pain that they shut down. For years at a time. I certainly do not judge them one bit. You T handled the pain gracefully, and being able to reach out for help by talking about the loss of your mom, sister and other close relatives has given us an example for how to continue functioning, then, how to continue living despite experiencing the deepest fears and pains that a human being can experience.